The Embassy Part 3: In Conclusion

I thought I would conclude with some interesting life lessons I learned from work…
5. The second hand on my watch does do 60 seconds in a minute, I counted multiple times
6. An elderly man who has no interest in the ATM will say “you’re pretty”,
but a young man who doesn’t have interest in the ATM will use the back door to the bank after my first day to avoid confronting me…
7. The most interesting shirt I saw said:

 I’m too
SEXY
for my
HAIR
that’s why there isn’t any
THERE

8. Nobody is boring or annoying when you’re bored enough to count seconds
9. People can’t understand me when I talk OR they don’t know what the word “ATM” means
10. I was disappointed to learn that being an ATM Ambassador doesn’t qualify me for a free upgrade to first class seating on planes.

 

 

The Embassy Part 2: Happy Hour, Bank Style

 Happy Hour at the bank would be Saturday morning, 9am sharp. Couples in their 90s flock to the bank just for the free coffee and donuts. They don’t peform any bank transactions. And I’m suspicious that some of them don’t even have accounts there. And they don’t want to be late or someone else will eat the apple danishes. Needless to say this was the busiest I’ve seen the bank- boy was it hopping! There was a line at the door waiting for us to open. A 92 year old man and I discussed the value of buying cars with ready cash. He told me a joke as well:
A man and a woman in their 60s meet a fairy, the fairy says “I’ll grant you each a wish”. The woman asks for a million dollars to travel the world. But the man asks for a woman 30 years younger than himself. So the fairy goes “poof” and the man becomes a 90 year old. The moral of the story I was told: fairies area always women.

To help pass the time-other than alternately counting the seconds on my watch and trying to avoid checking the time until at least 5 minutes had passed (I never made it past 1 minute)-I’ve started writing down what people say to me:      

                                                     
me: Have a nice day
man: kjdsfj ghoiehw
me: What?
man: Just wanted to see if you spoke Latin
(what he didn’t give me time to say was that I’ve studied French, Italian and Spanish.)

 

One woman in her 40s told me she wasn’t allowed to use the ATM-she’d gotten in trouble for it…”my husband yelled at me.”

 

man: oh I thought you were the new security guard-haha!
(what I don’t look tough?)

 

me: Would you like to hear about our new ATM features?
elderly man: I don’t use it…you’re pretty!

 

 

 

The Embassy

While working as an ATM ‘Ambassador’ probably doesn’t qualify for travel abroad, I’m going to bend the rules on this one and blog about my work at the “embassy” (aka bank). Basically my job was much like that of a real Ambassador: They help people of different cultures and countries work together-I helped people who didn’t know ATM’s existed discover brand new technology. I thought I would spend a lot of time going over the new features of the ATM, but instead I spent a lot of time realizing more people than I expected refuse to use or understand the ATM.

 

 

Part 1:

Day One at Work

On day one of work and I learned some really interesting things:
1.People look wary when you try to hand them flyers-even though you are smiling in a friendly manner.
2.People are more concerned about why a young woman is standing in a vestibule all day than about the new ATM features she is trying to tell them about
3.People think ATM’s are inconvenient, I’m still not sure why.
4.I can’t bring myself to say “have a great weekend” instead of “have a great day” I guess maybe I don’t want to intrude into stranger’s lives on a long term basis. I don’t want to be presumptuous because I don’t know what kind of plans people have for the weekend so I don’t want to get involved.